Big Bang Theory Halloween Challenge: The Kafkaesque Transmogrification
by AJoyForever
Summary: Part of the BBT site's Halloween Challenge and an excuse to try my hand at Alternative Universe / SciFi. M-rated content warning; strong language, scenes of a sexual nature and fantasy horror await you...if you dare! I do not own or profit from any part of The Big Bang Theory. Please read and review, I have no idea what to make of this story myself, let me know what you think. Ta!


**My contribution to the Big Bang Theory Forum's 2014 Halloween Fan Fic challenge set by Madamocho, and also an excuse to try my hand at Alternative Universe.**

**M-Rated Content Warning: Contains strong language, adult material of a sexual nature and fantasy horror sequences. **

**Enjoy (I think!) ;)  
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**The Kafkaesque Transmogrification Affair**

"Whoa, slow down!" Penny ceased the endless flow of gibberish from Leonard's mouth with her raised palm.

Her fiancé stuttered to a stammering halt, took a deep breath and tried again, his voice deliberate, his eyes intent.

"Penny, I'm serious, please call Amy, get her over here, I've never seen him so agitated."

"I'm telling you now Leonard Hofstadter, if you've pulled me from my deathbed for nothing there's gonna be a double funeral." Penny's palm turned to flick an accusatory index finger before she turned to shuffle gingerly to Sheldon's bedroom door, her gait aching-limbed and tentative as she sniffed down a neckful of mucus on her way.

She considered knocking but hey, why break the habit of a lifetime? Pushing it open, Penny was greeted by the sight of Sheldon balled up in a tight knot on the bed, rocking back and forth in an oblivious trance as he hugged his knees. An incoherent muttered stream hissed from his mouth, all formless jabbered nonsense till the words 'they're coming' found their lucid shape. Pulling the door to, she shambled back to the living room.

"Have you been letting him stay up late to watch the horror channel?" She accused.

"No!" Leonard scowled in affronted offense as he followed her to the front door. "As I was telling you, everything was normal, well, as normal as you're ever going to get with Sheldon, and then he jerked bolt upright from his spot and started pacing and repeating, 'they're coming, they're coming'. It took me fifteen minutes to herd him up then coral him in his bedroom."

"Right, I'm phoning her now." Penny called listlessly over her shoulder as she crossed the hallway to her apartment. "Then, I'm going to throw up, crawl back into bed and die! Seriously, I feel like fifty types of shit and, unless Armageddon happens, I don't want to know. Got it?"

Leonard jumped as the door to 4B slammed shut with a wall juddering slam.

…

Very little fazed Amy Farrah Fowler. She calmly took on-board Penny's strange description over the phone and now stood listening attentively to the garbled explanation of Leonard as he gesticulated wildly before her. Summarizing the combined information, she assessed the given evidence before making her way to Sheldon's bedroom to draw her own conclusion.

Unlike Penny, Amy always knocked; three taps in rapid succession, as was her way, before she called his name.

In contradiction to the information supplied, and in absolute opposite to Leonard's earlier attempts at communication with him, Sheldon's response was immediate.

"Amy, get the hell out of here!" He bellowed through the closed bedroom door.

With a resigned sigh, Amy entered to find his cramped form jerking on the bed in frenzied convulsions as he writhed and twitched. A chill traveled her back at his bizarre contortions, there was something altogether unearthly and ethereal in his movements, some macabre fluidity to him that set a ticking pulse of fear fluttering at the back of her throat as the blood rushed to pump a crunching thud in her ears.

"I mean it! Be gone woman!" In a limber flip that Amy would never have believed possible Sheldon spun to land on all fours, facing her in a panting, gasping crouch from his bed, his eyes piercing as he trembled with what appeared to be fear.

And then she saw it, just a flicker, gone as quickly as it arrived, the bright blue of his eyes suddenly gave way to a translucent glow from somewhere deep within and, for a nano- second, no more, the outline of scales was visible, indenting and puckering the pale luster of his skin from below.

Amy recoiled in horror as he snarled in a desperate throaty growl. "They're coming!"

Scrabbling for the door handle behind her back, she managed to locate it only to be stymied as an almighty rumbling hit to shake the building and Amy clung for all she was worth as the floor beneath her tremored, rattling the contents of Sheldon's bedroom and, as his belongings crashed down about her, his face morphed into a mask of torment and regret.

Springing from the bed he made the door in a limber elongated leap and, grabbing her roughly by the arm, yanked it open to drag her through. She trailed him in struggling protest along the hall to the living room where, with seemingly little effort, he tugged her past the terrified form of Leonard as he clung for dear life to the back of the couch as it rocked and shook with the deafening quake. Staggering they knocked together, their limbs crashing and battering against each other as they crossed the room, his grip grasping tighter and tighter, painfully numbing her hand as the floor wobbled beneath their feet and he practically hurled her out through the front door of 4A with a beseeching screech.

"Run Amy! Run!"

Frozen with fear she wavered in the shaking lobby before suddenly the sound and movement instantly ceased, ending as immediately as it had begun. The first eerie seconds of quiet and stillness were strangely amplified by the change as the electric buzz of silence hummed in her ears, before she started in fright, jumping in startled alarm as the first thumps and crashes sounded above their heads.

Amy felt every hair on her body stand on end as a pattering, scuttling, scrambling sound slithered down the stairwell towards them and Sheldon's eyes bulged fit to burst from his skull.

"Run!" He screamed.

In an instant he was in the hallway, pushing, shoving so hard that she stumbled on the top step and fell, scrambling for the handrail as she tumbled to crash against the wall at the bottom, twisting her ankle painfully but having no time to acknowledge the discomfort as once again her arm was grabbed and she was roughly wrenched towards the next flight as he hauled her along in his wake.

Behind them the sound of hissing whispers, sinister clicks and the scurrying patter of footfalls resounded to reverberate through the walls, closer and closer till, breathless and limping, Amy caught the first glance of a flitting shadow in her peripheral vision and a darting dark shape encroached to fill the space behind them, flashing upwards along the wall to whiz across the ceiling in a flurry past them, it's speed rendering it no more than a dark blur as it ducked away from sight in the stairwell below.

Sheldon halted, jerking her back against him, his arm encircling her, breath rattling in his throat, and she felt the vibrations through his flesh as, with his back leaning against the broken lift, his other hand blindly grappled to seek entrance before, with unheard of strength, he forced his way between the doors and began his crouching descent, folding her into his body as he rolled backwards, pushing and twisting them both through the tight gap so they fell for the remainder to land with a thump on the floor of the lift car.

The shaft of light closed to narrow then vanish away to a thin vertical line that hung in the black air above them. Amy quivered against Sheldon in the creeping darkness of the confined olid space, it's terrifying tenebrosity unrelenting, it's charred petroleum stench nauseating. She clung in fraught desperate need to his enveloping arms, finding some small comfort in his ragged breaths as they rose and fell against her back as she nestled into him.

Outside the volume of the whispered hisses and clicks rose to swell and ebb away, the flashing scurry of forms strobing the mean light from the thin strip in the doorway as they passed, their scuttling progress echoing though the lift shaft as they descended to scale the walls in their fruitless pursuit.

"What are those things?" How Amy found the strength to speak, she did not know.

"Those things are a subgenus of my species." Sheldon was expressionless in his explanation.

"Your species?" Amy struggled to comprehend, what was this, some kind of ridiculous sci-fi nightmare?

"Yes, they've come for me." He explained. "My mission is over."

"Your mission?" She blurted incredulously.

"Yes." Suddenly his voice was not so expressionless, his speech laced with more sorrow and regret than Amy could bear. "I finally found them a subject of sufficient intellect to run their experiments on."

Sheldon didn't need to say more, the cold hard truth hit home as her blood ran ice cold.

"What will they do to me Sheldon."? Her voice broke, cracking to quaver with fear.

His silence spoke volumes as his arms tightened about her and she felt his hot breath and wet tears on her neck as he shook his head.

"I'm so sorry." He whispered.

"Oh God!" Amy gripped his arm, feeling the give of his soft warm flesh as she snuggled for comfort and inhaled his familiar smell of talcum powder and fabric conditioner, noticing only now that the scent of his skin was changing, his pheromones fading so he now longer smelled of himself and her fingertips found the ridges of the diamond scales as they once again pressed their pattern against his flesh.

She withdrew her hand aghast to shudder against him in horror as she gasped. "How long do we have?"

"They'll find us soon." He sighed in sorrow. "They're drones, they're blind and deaf but the scent of this burnt rocket fuel won't mask us for much longer. Their job is to sniff me out Amy, to retrieve me, and fetch my subject back too."

He jumped in surprise as Amy suddenly laughed, an ironic tinkling chuckle in the darkness as she explained wryly. "I might've known it was too good to be true. That someone like Dr Sheldon Lee Cooper would never really be interested in me. I mean, all my life I've been proud of my intellect and now it's to be the death of me. How stupid of me not to smell a rat."

"Stupid, is the last thing you are." He bemoaned, his voice suddenly breaking as he cried. "I wish you were stupid, then this wouldn't be happening, but I am programmed not to lie and you are the most intelligent human I have ever encountered, the first and only one ever to meet their criteria and they know it. I tried to feign them with Kripke but I failed and I can't bear it."

Sheldon's body shook against her in wracking sobs as he squeezed, the sudden strength in his arms pressing the air from her lungs as his tears stung her neck with their salty burn.

"What are you?" She managed to squeak. "Are you some kind of robot?"

"I'm what you'd call a worker." He explained. "My job is to serve. Those that serve well and achieve their mission ascend in rank to reach the upper echelons in our hierarchy and earn reproduction rights. You need status for parthenogenesis to occur."

"Parthenogenesis? You reproduce in solitary without sex?" Amy laughed again; she couldn't help herself. "Okay, suddenly this all starts to make sense."

"How can you laugh?" He wondered in bewilderment.

"What else can I do Sheldon?" She answered honestly, shrugging against him as she added. "Maybe it's some kind of Karma that I meet my end this way, after all, I've chopped up enough lab rats myself, perhaps I had it coming?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Sheldon rocked and swayed as he held her, his warm mouth brushing her cheek as he whispered into her hair.

Amy was suddenly struck by the injustice of it all, her own calm devil may care demeanor crumbling away in the warmth of his arms as regret flooded her.

"I wanted to live before I died." She confessed and she crumpled as her sorrow took hold, only for him to crush her tighter still, burying his face into her neck as she reached to run her hand through his short crop of hair and breathe in the last of his scent, memorizing him before he disappeared forever as hot tears seared her face and her mouth trembled.

A warm hand loosened its grip on her ribcage to slide higher, enveloping her right breast in a gentle undulating press as she sniffed back her emotion to joke.

"Oh great, now you finally find second base!" She teased through her tears only to jump in surprise as his left hand rose to mirror his right, seizing her free breast to knead and squeeze as his lips found the contours of her exposed neck to suckle and press kisses against her awakening flesh.

Setting the right breast free now, his hand slid lower, chasing the spasming twists that jumped on her skin as he progressed down her torso to negotiate the banding of her skirt. Slipping now beneath the stiff denim to bother the elastic banding of her panties, the bind of her clothes restricted his movement as he tickled beneath the soft stretchy material to find warm flesh and the springy down of her hair before he preceded further still.

Nimble fingers traced their way to the soft silken skin where she parted to place a tentative exploratory touch that pressed softly to gently open and reveal the pearl of her, twitching, pulsing keenly to offer him a slippery welcome that enticed and mesmerized as she turned her lips to seek his and her fist tightened to grip and twist a short tufted handful of hair, pulling him closer and parting her mouth to greet his.

His darting tongue mirrored his deft fingers as he started to circle, pressing, teasing, tickling as she pulsed with the pure delight that trickled in tributaries through her veins, heightening to transport her to a breathless verge of joy, before suddenly fading away in a frustrating retreat of gasping frustration. Taking up a swaying gird, she ground and pushed till his exploring fingers traced the pinnacle of her pleasure over and over, again and again, striking to draw and drain the bliss from her, over-spilling, flowing free in a peaking swirling rush of salvation that jerked her groaning body and prickled her skin in a bristling burn.

And in that dank stygian crypt Amy found herself gently laid low amongst the fetid sooty detritus as her beloved boyfriend rested his weight upon her and the telling evidence of his long awaited attraction pushed hard against the damp cotton of her panties.

"What the hell happened to parthenogenesis?" She joked, tears of happiness mingling now amongst the ever-lurking fear.

"In my true form I have no genitalia, I would be surely failing in my humanoid endeavors if I did not, at least once, try them out for purpose now wouldn't I?" His smile shaped upon her lips as he spoke in the darkness, pressing his kiss upon her in coordination with his first push, the warm press of his rigid flesh setting in motion a new thrum and pound as she ached for him.

"Well, all in the name of science, you understand!" She gave a small half laugh as she slipped her hands between their groins, grappling to find the opening of his pants in the murky blackness, clumsy fingers stumbling as she released his button to struggle and tug down his zipper before wrapping her hand about the cotton clad arousal that now poked proud from his open fly.

Running her palm along the stiffened rising of him she was rewarded by a low moan and a whispered. "I want you."

His movements were so rapid that there was no time to think as, with first a rustle and then a snap of elastic, his cloth bound length became at once the smooth heat of velvet skin, hot and silken as it worried against the humid pulse beneath the enforced chastity of her panties. In a sharp tug, flesh met flesh as the cotton was dashed aside and the warm touch of him teased the tangled nub of nerves that jumped and tightened, her own pursing excitement closing in absorption about his as he fought for position and sought entry.

Plunging in a sharp thrust, something gave, the scald of a hot sting jolted her body as she was filled tight, stretching to envelope him as she cried out in shocked surprise as he gorged her flesh.

"I'm sorry." He kissed away the sting, his lips molding the words on her mouth as he stilled his hips.

"There's no need to be." She comforted, reaching again for the soft pile of his hair to trace and tickle her fingers through before she lowered to trail exploring hands along the smoothness of his neck, settling on the sharp jut of his shoulder blades as in sorrow she felt again the distinct ridge of the diamond scales as they rose to the surface.

"Make love to me Sheldon." She pleaded and, at these words, the first drive of his hips spread the sharp burn, diluting it with each stroke till it was no more and the hot push of his pelvis against hers spread a friction of feeling throughout her body, a divine fullness, a oneness, a nearness, the innate knowledge that no touch from him could ever be deeper and, as he met his end and died his own small death upon her person, she was struck with an almost holy awakening, clutching his shuddering form to her as he pulsated and moaned a sound of delight so seraphic it was as though angels called to her soul.

They lay quiet as the sounds outside multiplied, each darkening shadow against the chink of light signifying the approach of another drone, another and then another, each clicking, each hissing, and with each new arrival the press of the scales deepened in Sheldon's flesh, the softness fading to a hard exoskeleton, as smooth and dry as fingernails as she traced curious exploring fingertips along his encircling arms as they shifted to huddle against the back wall of the lift car, awaiting their fate as the doors above creaked and strained with the building pressure.

In a sudden illuminating burst, a blinding beam of electric light hit them as the lift doors finally gave and, in that flickering instant, her sight caught the round circle of his silver head and saw the flash of fear in those glowing amber eyes before they were plunged back into the murk of a spotty blackness as hoards of drones spilled in to fill the space from the floor upwards.

The cacophony of hissing and clicking was ear-splitting as she was carried towards the light by the sheer volume of bodies building beneath her. Spiny prickled limbs bruised as she was bashed against antenna and abdomens in the flurry and tumble as she was elevated wincing into the brightly lit lobby. Moving too quickly to recover her vision, she found herself swept along in a seemingly endless stream of undulating black shells as she struggled and failed to catch sight of Sheldon. Flashing through the fourth floor in a blur, the high-pitched call of her name mixed with the phantasmagoria as the horror rendered her helpless, leaving her dazed and defenseless as the cold night air hit her face before she was once again blinded by the fluorescence of the vessel that rested before her in a humming shimmer upon the building's roof.

Amy floundered in the weightlessness as she floated, blocking her eyes as the light scorched her retinas, blinking away the colored blobs as she passed the beams to enter the darkened hold of the ship where suddenly gravity struck and she crashed gracelessly to the floor to land crumpled, sore and terrified.

More clicking found her ears and a squelching cluck of guttural sounds that seemed to form a code, a pattern and, as her eyes adjusted, she was met with the sight of the creature that was formally Sheldon, still dressed in his signature two shirts and plaid pants, prone on the ground, prostrate at the feet of another being, larger, a darker silver, it's snout more elongated as the noises issued forth from what she guessed had to be it's mouth.

Turning now, the larger creature surveyed her and she saw again the same flash in its amber eyes as she had seen in Sheldon's. Did it just recoil? Was she dreaming?

Turning back, it addressed Sheldon, it's clicks and squelching clucks faster now, perhaps more urgent she guessed?

"Sheldon, what's happening?" She cried, unsure whether he would answer, or if, in this form he was even able to.

He answered her in fluent op, her very own made up language, and she saw a different flash cross the larger being's eyes; anger she guessed.

"The Styx wants to know why your eyes are weeping. We have no immunity to your viruses here; a common cold can be fatal, perhaps not to me any more, as an embryonic implant, but certainly to them. I will tell them you're unwell, that it would be fatal to keep you."

Sheldon issued his own series of clicks and clucks, still bowed in his submissive stance as he made his case.

Bright, boring eyes burned into Amy Farrah Fowler as the Styx looked from her to Sheldon, before seeming to stiffen as it's mouth suddenly opened to out-shoot a tentacle, reminiscent of a frogs tongue in pursuit of a fly in its grey gooeyness, that suckered to the front of Sheldon's head. The acidic slime appeared to burn its entrance into his scaled silver skull and he juddered and convulsed as if wired to an electric circuit as a squealing wail was rent from him.

Retracting the sticky tentacle now, Sheldon flopped lifelessly to land face down as the Styx turned its attention back to Amy. Issuing a sucking series of clicks she found the pattern on the walls around her suddenly animated as the unnoticed drones, that had rested about her like armored cladding, descended in a flocking scurry to approach her as she sobbed in mourning for her fallen hero. There was no struggle, no fight left in her as she meekly surrendered to be carried towards a cylindrical chamber which harnessed an unknown magnetism and, as she found herself sucked in to hang helpless upon the wall, she thought of the centripetal acceleration of the fairground, but here the spinning was in her head and the dizzying grief of her loss the cause of her nausea as she wept.

"Let my friends go!" The sharp warning in Penny's voice meant business as two pairs of eyes, both green and amber, turned towards the sound.

Penny stood bravely, a picture of defiance in two day-old stained pajamas, eyes bloodshot, nose flaky and red as she coughed to clear the flem from her throat.

And there it was again. That recoil, that flash of fear. In urgency the Styx extended again with it's tentacle, worrying at the wound in Sheldon's forehead in a desperate attempt to reanimate, to find the data it needed, the sickening squelch as it slipped round to re-enter through the gaping oozy silver lesion was all that was needed to spur Penny into action.

To the yelled "No!" from Leonard beyond, Penny sprang, launching at the Styx with the ferocity of a wild cat and, as she landed against the larger being with a bone-splitting smack, a fizzing pierced the air and a steaming hiss broke free from the cracks that opened in it's exoskeleton where her hands and feet had hit home. Writhing in agony, it crashed to its side with a shrill ear-splitting screech.

The girl's watched breathlessly as it cramped and twitched in the throes of a paroxysmal spasm before a splintering crackle cut through the air and, in a ebullition of erupting splattering ectoplasm, it exploded, shattering to scatter it's brittle armor like eggshells across the floor of the vessel, spraying Penny with viscous colorless goop, and leaving just the grey mass of a brain-like organ from which its limp tentacle extended throbbing slowly in pulsating unprotected vulnerability.

Leonard approached cautiously to pull his fiancé away as he surveyed the scene in disbelief. His "What do we do now?" interrupted only by a soft slurping sound.

Mesmerized by the sheer horror of it, Leonard and Penny peered down at the strange creature still garbed in their friend's clothes. Slowly, a feeble grey sliver peeked from its mouth. Weakly it sent forth it's own tentacles, clinging to the slimy limb of the pulsing organ that protruded still from the glistening dark wound in its head to slither and twine about it.

With the contact, the viscid grey tendrils grew in strength, climbing faster now to twist and embed themselves in the glutinous palpitating mass before a nauseating sucking sound finally forced a heave from deep within Penny's already delicate stomach as slowly the brain-like cluster was drawn towards the opening, and the creatures jaws opened to guzzle and imbibe the heaving gristle, the disgusting chug and slurp finally ceasing to leave behind the rattle of twitching antenna from the surrounding drones, their own shallow breaths and Amy's mewling cries behind them.

The first thunder-crack made them jump back in alarm! Leonard grabbed Penny's arm as quick as a whip to pull her away as a second splitting crunch sounded and she was dragged backwards, unable to tear her eyes from the spectacle before her as the silver scales on the creature's arms and head split and a stream of steam hissed from the gaping crevices. The green t-shirt, Sheldon's Green Lantern T-shirt, stretched and strained, tearing to shred as the creature swelled, the ripping sound rude, almost amusing as the plaid trousers fell away, dropping to the floor with a flash of the white underpants Sheldon so favored amongst them till a practically identical creature to the Styx unfolded to stand before them, its snout a little longer, its scales a little darker from what it had morphed from as it turned vivid amber eyes to her.

Penny knew those eyes. Knew that expression, the tilt of the head.

"Sheldon?!" She questioned in astoundment.

The creature omitted a series of squelching clucks and behind her she heard a dull thud as the body of Amy Farrah Fowler crashed to the floor from her suspended pod, but still she couldn't look away.

Amy's hobbled footfalls approached and the gentle hands of Leonard found Penny's shoulders as she gazed in mute wonder, holding her back as the cautious steps of her best friend passed her by, stopping just short to face the creature.

"Thank you Sheldon." Amy wavered, nodding in a tremble of emotion.

The creature nodded back, answering in the clipped Texan tones of Sheldon Lee Cooper as he answered. "You should really thank Penny and her life-saving lack of personal hygiene."

"What the actual fucking fuck?!" Penny sank her fingernails into the comforting arms of her fiancé as she fell back against him in shock.

"Jesus Sheldon! Jesus!" Leonard finally exploded. "What the actual fucking fuck?"

"I'm sorry, was there a question in amongst all that blasphemy and ripe Anglo-Saxon language?" The creature snarked sarcastically.

"Just… just… just… seriously, what the fuck?" Leonard shook his head in confusion as he almost pulled a clump of his unruly hair clean from his head.

Amy smiled. She just couldn't help it. In return the creature's mouth twitched in Sheldon's familiar smirk as his amber eyes twinkled that old twinkle that was his, and his alone.

"My God! You really are a sexy praying mantis." She exasperated breathlessly.

"Perhaps?" The creature winked to extend a scaly talon which Amy tentatively reached for.

His scales were cool to the touch, at first, but, as she wrapped her hands about the horny skeletal claw she noticed the warming, the softening, and the lightening in color as the peachy pink of his flesh appeared through the metallic shine in a rapidly thickening diamond matrix.

As the dark scales sunk to be submerged below a familiar layer of pale skin, his beloved human features protruded from the circular dome of his head, eyes shrinking to fade darker, morphing to a murky brown that lightened again to settle at the piercing blue that she knew and loved so well.

"How can you do that?" She questioned in wonderment.

"It's good to be King Amy!" Sheldon waggled his eyebrows playfully.

"You realize you're naked!" Amy looked down, then immediately back up in a scarlet burn of blushing embarrassment. "And, you're erm…oh God, Sheldon, you look like you're pleased to see me!"

That smirk again, and a leer of such a lascivious nature Amy questioned if this in fact was the Sheldon Cooper she knew.

"As I said Amy Farrah Fowler, it's good to be King!" And he gave her another wink that melted her insides to a molten whirl of want.

"Ahem!" Leonard's embarrassed cough interrupted their reverie. "Perhaps we should be going?"

"Yes." Sheldon tore his gaze away to face Leonard and Penny. "I think you should."

With no warning, the coiled slime of his tongue elongated to spring from his mouth in a rapid strike towards the shocked expressions of Leonard and Penny, splitting to fork like a lizards as two suckers squelched to land with a slurp on each of their heads, dropping them immediately to the floor to twist and shudder in a convulsing fit of juddering synchronization.

"What about me?" Amy's voice quivered as she watched Leonard and Penny jerk in wild agitation, turning to face him, square in the eye, strangely emboldened as she repeated. "What about me?" and as quickly as it had struck, his tongue retreated back behind his lips with a disgusting slithering slurp,

"Hmm, what about you Amy?" Sheldon pondered. "In my dimension you'll be of average intelligence, nothing special." He paused for a moment before he found the words, a conspirital smile playing on his lips, "But you'll be mine."

So, with the legs of her recumbent friends still kicking and twitching behind her, Amy nodded sagely and weighed up her options.

…

"Holy crap on a cracker, what the fuckitty-fuck was in that cold medicine?" Penny gripped her throbbing head as she struggled into consciousness beside her fiancé's prone form, kicking him beneath the covers to wake him.

"Urgh!" Leonard rolled to his side to face her. "Oh crap, I got your flu." He groaned. "Shit, shit shit! My head's pounding."

"Get me some painkillers Sweetie." Penny wheedled.

"Get 'em yourself 'Sweetie', and bring me some back here." The blinding thump in his head took Leonard far away from his usual amenable self.

Rolling from the bed, Penny dragged herself to stand before making her unsteady passage along the corridor to the kitchen of 4A. Passing Sheldon's room, a familiar female voice caught her ear.

"Leonard!" she hissed to no reply. She waited a beat, still no reply, before making her way back to Leonard's room where he lay in a groaning heap of shivering self pity.

"Leonard, I just heard Amy's voice in Sheldon's room." She whispered urgently.

"Shut! Your! Arse! Amy stayed the night?!" The news seemed to break through Leonard's suffering to launch him upright and he followed in tiptoeing stealth behind Penny to take up position at Sheldon's bedroom door, straining his ears to catch the conversation within.

"Do that thing with your tongue again, I like it!"

"You're weird Amy Farrah Fowler, do you know that?"

"Yes I do know actually. Lucky for you eh?"

"Too late for the painkillers." Leonard gurgled. "I'm gonna throw up!"

Penny sorted through the medicine drawer as the heaving echo of Leonard's vomiting reached the kitchen.

She landed Bernadette's flu medicine in the trash can in one shot. Screw taking any more of that shit! Her big bug nightmare was fading now into that unrecallable unreal confusion that strips your dreams from your waking state, and thank God, the little nebulous flashes that endured were bad enough; grey scales, amber eyes, ugh, Penny shuddered as she flicked the kettle on to boil.

And boy, did she ever need a shower? She'd never felt so clammy and disgusting. I mean for goodness sake, how on earth had she managed to get snot below her goddamned knees? Seriously, what the hell?!

**The End**

**Authors Note: **

**Don't have nightmares now and Happy Halloween! **

**Trick or Treat? I crave the sweet candy of feedback…please review! **

**Thanks for reading...mwah ha ha!**


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